Chapter Six

A week.

The words hung in the air of the now-silent war room, but Kougar acted as if he hadn't heard. The anger in his eyes, anger directed at her upon her admission that she'd severed the mating bond to save him, hadn't abated even a flicker.

Goddess, she'd hoped if she could keep the mating bond in its current mangled state, he might survive the poison. Now the Shaman was giving him only a few months, at best.

This shouldn't have happened!

She could wring Melisande's neck for going behind her back. And she would if not for the fact that she knew Mel had only done it to help her. To help them all.

But, dammit, she would not see Kougar die. They had to find Hookeye fast. Not that they hadn't been trying. Goddess, they'd been trying for centuries.

Maybe the Ferals could help. Maybe they really would succeed where Melisande had failed. Ariana's fingers clenched into fists. She had to keep that mating bond closed tight and give Kougar as much time as possible. Time enough to save his life, even if they weren't in time to save his friends.

A muscle leaped in Kougar's jaw as she watched him, his arms and shoulders rigid as steel. Fury enveloped him like a red haze.

"Under the circumstances, Kougar," Lyon began, "I think it might be better if one of the other Ferals guards Queen Ariana. The longer that mating bond remains closed, the better."

A low animal growl rolled from Kougar's throat as his hand circled her upper arm, biting into her flesh. "It'll stay closed." Beneath his tight grip, she felt a fine vibration, a volcanic anger ready to blow.

Anger at her or Hookeye? Or the fates for handing him down a death sentence? Probably all three, and there was nothing she could do to make it better.

"Then meeting adjourned," Lyon said. "Get some rest, if you can. Kougar, I'll let you know the minute we find something on that Mage."

Yanking her with him, Kougar steered her out of the room and down the wide hallway toward the foyer.

She wasn't entirely certain herself why she'd never contacted him. For a while, her situation had been impossible. But later . . . she wasn't sure. She'd never made the active decision to stay away from him. For a thousand years, she'd loved him, missed him, and always intended to go back to him. Someday.

But even if she knew what to say to ease his anger, she wouldn't say it. His anger was keeping him alive. For now.

He steered her through the foyer and up one of the curved stairs to a long hall that, like much of what she'd seen of Feral House so far, looked like it had been decorated a hundred years ago. The green-and-gold wallpaper of the foyer had given way to walls papered in swirls of gold peacock feathers on a beige field, covered in paintings of all styles and types--landscapes, medieval portraits, battle scenes. Electric sconces hung at regular intervals like oil lamps of old. She'd always loved the style of that era. The gilt and color pleased her Ilina eye.

Kougar stopped at one of the doors that lined the long hallway, opened it, and pushed her none-too-gently inside what was clearly his bedroom.

His bedroom. Could their reunion have played out any differently in her head? How many times had she imagined his reaction when she found him again, his face wreathed in joy, his eyes gleaming like silver like they used to whenever he saw her. She'd imagined him lifting her, like he had in those days, until they were eye to eye as if she weighed nothing, then kissing her as if he'd been holding his breath all that time and would only breathe again when their lips were fused. He'd always made her feel as if she were his sun and his moon when they were together, though those times had been all too seldom and those two years far too short.

But the reunion of her imaginings was nothing like the reality. There were no smiles. No sweet kisses. No softness at all. Only anger and hopelessness, and death hanging like a low, dark cloud over their heads.

Harsh fingers released her arm, leaving the flesh throbbing. Behind her, the door closed with a bang that rattled the windows. Ariana turned, ready to face her accuser; but Kougar paced away, violence seething beneath the animal grace of his walk.

Without warning, he yanked the straight-backed wooden chair out from his desk, lifted it, and sent it crashing down on the broad wood surface, splintering into a dozen pieces. As chunks of wood clattered against the wall and onto the floor, he threw what was left of the chair across the room, then arched as if in terrible pain. Hands fisted at his sides, he threw back his head and let out a roar filled with such fury that she knew she should be quaking with fear. But along with that roar, she heard pain. A pain she'd caused.

Guilt twisted inside her. She'd never meant to hurt him like this. But, dammit, he wasn't the only one who'd suffered!

His fangs and claws erupted as he started toward her, stalking her with eyes turned the yellow of a jungle cat.

Ariana held her ground, her wrists still bound before her as she faced him. Inches away from her, he stopped, staring down at her from his great height like an animal about to strike. Though her heart pounded in response to his fury and the memory of the last time he'd drawn claws on her, up in the Crystal Realm, she wasn't afraid. Not of Kougar. No, she was getting mad. He acted as if she'd carelessly tossed him aside, and nothing could be further from the truth.

His lips drew back in a snarl over teeth clenched tight, his fangs long and sharp. "You. Put. Me. Through. Hell."

She lifted her chin, meeting that fiery gaze, giving rein to the anger that was building inside her, knowing that the best thing she could do for both of them was to feed his own.

"Join the club!" She met him nose to nose, glower for glower. "I wasn't the one who insisted we mate despite both our peoples' being dead set against it. I wasn't the one who insisted we were fated for one another!" She punched the rock-hard plane of his abdomen with her bound hands. "I wasn't the one who pushed and pushed . . ."

He snarled. "You think this was all my fault? You blame me?"

"I blame us both! Ninety-six Ilinas died because I let you talk me into a mating that should have never been. It was both of our faults." She punched him again. "If you'd left me alone, my maidens would be alive. The Mage would never have turned on us. I wouldn't have lost ninety-six of my friends, my sisters, then spent nearly three hundred years tending the remaining forty-four, most of whom were barely alive. My world was destroyed!"

She slugged him again. "I put you through hell? I used to dream I could change the past, dream that I'd turned and walked away instead of letting you kiss me that first time. For a thousand years, I've rued the day we met!"

She was as angry as he was, her chest heaving, her eyes burning with righteous fire and unshed tears. Somewhere in her diatribe he'd retracted his claws, and he grabbed her shoulders hard, his eyes once more pale, sparking with fury, and something more. A passion of a different kind.

"You haven't rued that day half as much as I have." But the tone of his voice had changed, turning husky. He curved his hand around the back of her neck, pulled her to him and crushed her mouth beneath his in a kiss filled with anger and frustration, and hot, searing need. He didn't want to be kissing her, she was more than sure of that.

Ariana struggled against his hold, trying to escape the kiss that was already sending drugging warmth flowing into her blood. The kiss changed from one of possession to one of passion in an instant, and she was lost.

She gave herself up to the kiss, reveling in the power of the man and the need that sparked like an electric wire in a raging storm. So much lay between them. So much grief, so much pain. But, goddess, she'd missed him. Missed his demanding, yet gentle touch, his warm, masculine scent, and the feel of his hard body moving against hers.

Passion exploded. Pleasure engulfed her, flowing through her like warm honey as their lips parted, and his tongue swept into her mouth. Unlike the kiss he'd forced on her in her home, this one contained no true hatred, only an anger that was already washing away in the passion. His mouth gentled, his hands gripping with a growing hunger as sharp as her own.

In her blood, the passion dissolved in a sweet rush, shifting into an essence more important to an Ilina than food. Normal pleasure strengthened. A tasty dinner, a beautiful ballet, even a little quality time with her vibrator. But what she felt in Kougar's arms transformed. She'd forgotten. A moan trembled in her chest. Dear goddess, she'd forgotten.

For so long she'd needed a man. This man. Though she'd taken a few lovers over the centuries, Kougar was the only one she'd wanted.

His mouth left hers, dipping to her neck, and she tipped her head back, absorbing the exquisite feel of his mouth on her body. She needed to touch him, to slide her fingers into his hair and hold him as he held her, but her bound hands were pinned between their bodies.

"Unbind me, Kougar. I need to touch you."

He ignored her, kissing her neck, his hands sliding to her waist, to the fastening of her jeans. Her pulse vaulted. He shoved her jeans and panties down over her hips in a single tug, then thrust his hand between her legs, entering her with a single, quaking, seeking finger.

Her body melted. "Kougar. More. I need you inside me."

She wasn't sure what happened, only that the moment the words left her mouth, he pulled away. His finger left her, his expression turning back into a hard, brittle mask. Without a word, with a coldness she didn't entirely understand, he turned and walked to the window, where the morning sunlight poured into the room, gleaming on the chair wreckage that littered the floor.

He spoke, his back to her, his words flat and devoid of the anger of a moment ago, and all the more cutting because of it. "When we kill that damned Mage, and I'm free of this poison, I'm out of your life, Ariana. And I want you out of mine."

"Done." And she meant it. She meant it.

Goddess, had she blamed him all this time without consciously realizing it? Had she been punishing them both by staying away from him? Even if it wasn't the only reason, she couldn't deny it had undoubtedly played a part in staying her hand all those times she'd thought of seeking him out.

She took a deep breath and let it out on a ragged sigh. There was no going back, only forward. What was done, was done. All they could do now was try to find Hookeye before he attacked again. As if Melisande hadn't been trying for hundreds of years. Hopelessness pressed on her as she stared at Kougar's rigid back. He was going to die. The poison would take him, just as it had taken so many she'd loved. And when it did, now that the mating bond was well and truly attached, she was going to suffer.

Even if she hated her mate, the bond's rupture would damage her.

And she didn't hate Kougar.

But neither did she love him as she once had, with that certainty, that wholehearted exuberance. What she'd once felt for him had long ago become twisted with dark layers of grief and horror and anger. Instinctively, she knew the best thing was for her to keep it that way.

Then maybe, when Kougar died, she wouldn't feel like she'd died, too.

Chapter Seven

Kougar gripped the window frame until he heard the wood creak beneath his fingers. He was losing it, the emotions that had been all but dead for a millennium turning into a wild storm inside him as he struggled for control. He wanted to shake Ariana until her teeth rattled for severing the mating bond and walking away from him. He longed to yell at her until his throat was hoarse. And he yearned to make love to her. Goddess, he needed to make love to her.

And that would be a monumental mistake.

Already, his body was a living inferno from just a kiss and the quick slide of his finger inside her. He hadn't meant to touch her like that. He hadn't meant to touch her at all, but he was losing control. All he could think of was tearing off Ariana's clothes and making love to her until neither of them could think . . . or stand.

And he didn't want that!

From the moment he saw her again, he'd needed to be inside her. From the moment he'd ushered her into his bedroom, even through his rage, he'd shaken with the need to toss her onto the bed and follow her down.

Goddess, all he wanted was her out of his life again!

Yet deep inside him, his cat clawed to reach her, to claim her. Not as he wanted to, with his cock deep inside her, but as his mate. Their mate.

No. Not again. They might not be able to sever the bond again, but that didn't mean he had to care what happened to her. He didn't have to love her. He'd done that once, and it had damn near killed him.

He refused to fall for her again.

But his body burned, hot and throbbing, desperate to be inside her. It wasn't going to happen. He wasn't having sex with her. He refused to lose control like that with her again. But his body burned.

Turning, he found her watching him, her jeans once more up around her hips, though not zipped. Those too-blue eyes watched him, the fire he'd set in them banked but not out. Not nearly out.

Goddess.

He walked to his desk and dug through the wreckage until he found his scissors, then crossed to her and removed the tape binding her hands none too gently.

She rubbed her wrists, her eyes sharp with annoyance.

He was a fool. A fucking weak fool.

"Take off your clothes." The words came out of his mouth, little more than a growl, and he knew he was lost.

"Now, why are you mad?" Anger flared in her eyes even as she pulled off her T-shirt and tossed it on the chest at the foot of the bed.

"Because I don't want you. Because I refuse to fall back into that soul-sucking trap of needing to be inside you every moment of every day."

He closed the distance between them and once more yanked her jeans down over her hips, taking her panties with them.

She stared at him, her face a mask of heat and confusion. "Then what are you doing?"